French artist Bruno Catalano has created an extraordinary series of eye-catching bronze sculptures called “Les Voyageurs” in Marseilles that depict realistic human workers with large parts of their bodies missing.

I think that the missing parts of the sculptures (their imperfections) make them truly extraordinary and unique.

Giada Semeraro

Marie-Lou Desmeules is an artist who uses pure pigment to transform living models into bizarre sculptures of surreal celebrity lookalikes. Her work refers in particular to plastic surgery which often for some reason or another, didn’t exactly go as anticipated. We can read in her work a veiled complaint to reality television, which imposed this kind of beauty.

Michelle Marshall is a french photographer. During her career she decided to document the incidence of the MC1R gene mutation responsible for red hair and freckles, particularly amongst black/mixed raced individuals of all ages. The gene is recessive, which means both parents need to have it, in order for the child to receive it. Marshall wanted to show the stereotype of the redhead is not representative for all people who enjoy their red strands. Her work is really interesting.

Nancy Davidson creates massive inflatable sculptures that resemble an unbridled body, ballooned and bulging. Combining pop culture kitsch with a feminist spirit and carnivalesque sense of humor, the artist specializes in a visceral language of bellies, bumps and lovely lady lumps, harnessing the bodily force of the human form in a minimalist range of colors and shapes.

Many of the sculptures begin with a weather balloon that the artist blows up with a nozzle. Then she goes to work, squeezing and binding and smushing the round orbs into various bodacious configurations.

For example, “Blue Moon” (below) resembles a belly and butt bursting from a corset trying desperately to restrain them, while another recalls fishnet stockings winding their way up impossibly long legs. Through abstraction, Davidson creates images so physical you may find yourself needing to swallow, as sometimes perusing erotic materials makes one forget to breathe.

After a slew of instagram hate following her body positive imagery depicting women’s body hair went viral, it would have been easy for Seattle based photographer Ashley Armitage to take a step back from her bare-all approach to photography. But this online hate didn’t deter her from portraying a realistic, photoshop free depiction of the female form. Instead of bowing to the trolls, Armitage decided to push the boundaries of beauty standards further, shooting stretch marks, scars, spots and more.

“I create images of the female body because historically these images have been controlled by men. We were always the painted and not the painters. I’m trying to take back what’s ours and explore what it means to have a body that has always been defined by a male hand”– Ashley Armitage

We can see actors transformed to fit completely into the character of a film in which they starred . Some of the transformations are truly amazing , it’s not just the makeup and hair , but also to actual physical changes, such as haircuts , losses or drastic weight gain . In short , being an actor is not a walk , and it’s not just money and fame , we must also make compromises and sometimes change things about their appearance they do not want to ever change . It must be said that some of these actors are really transformed beyond recognition , it will surprise you to find out who they really are few movie characters who may have seen.

We’ve seen what a Barbie doll would look like if modeled after the average 19-year-old woman. But when you juxtapose a doll’s facial features with a real woman’s, the results are startling.

That’s what photographer Sheila Pree Bright did in her 2003 series “Plastic Bodies,” which is currently part of the traveling art show “Posing Beauty in African American Culture.” Pree Bright’s work focuses mostly on women of color, exploring their complex relationships to white beauty standards by combining images of real women’s bodies and faces with those of dolls.

“American concepts of the “perfect female body” are clearly exemplified through commercialism, portraying “image as everything” and introducing trends that many spend hundreds of dollars to imitate. It is more common than ever that women are enlarging breasts with silicone, making short hair longer with synthetic hair weaves, covering natural nails with acrylic fill-ins, or perhaps replacing natural eyes with contacts.

Even on magazine covers, graphic artists are airbrushing and manipulating photographs in software programs, making the image of a small waist and clear skin flawless. As a result, the female body becomes a replica of a doll, and the essence of natural beauty in popular American culture is replaced by fantasy.”

Scars are part of our lives, but when it’s too hard to live with them, the solution of tattoos over scars can help people to feel better. Recently, great progress has been made in plastic surgery thanks to tattoo art. Breast cancer survivors with mastectomy surgery scars are now able to reclaim their femininity with lovely tattoos, as well as burnt persons, with re-pigmentation. People with surgery, accident and self-harm scars, as well as stretch marks, often call on tattoo artists’ services to help them. It is a process full of emotions, which requires tact and experience. Each scar has got its solution, but also its difficulties. So, if you want to cover a scar with a tattoo, please find the time to make your researches and choose a tattoo artists with a solid experience in tattooing scars. If your tattoo artists is not enough experienced, the lines could blow or look quirky. If it is possible to insert ink in scar tissues, the result won’t look the same as in the rest of the tattoo. Also, if you had nerve damages, the tattoo can be more painful than expected.

In recent years Mattel has been flooded with criticism for his size and Barbie’s life so decided a sea change for a company often criticized for representing a stereotypical beauty. Today, with this new operation, all women can identify with the nearest to your physical model. in my opinion this is a representative case of imperfect beauty.

“It’s hard to confront yourself with the daily physical pain. Prosthetics, after all, aren’t your legs. So you wake up with a biting pain in different parts of your body,” the 30-something Italian says, pointing at her tummy and hips, “You can’t walk exactly like you walked yesterday. It’s different, every day.”

Giada Semeraro

An organization in Japan care broken toys taking the pieces from others. Objective: to teach children what is a transplant. The idea is that a donor organization provides a toy that does not use from which will be explanted organs (ie the pieces) which will then be used to repair another broken toy. The donor will receive in return a letter with photos of the repaired toy and his happy owner and from there will start a discussion with friends and family about the importance of organ donation.

It’s no secret that the smooth, plastic bodies staring out of store windows aren’t true physical replicas of the people who stare back at them. But there’s no reason they can’t be. Pro Infirmis, an organization for the disabled, created a series of mannequins based on real people with physical disabilities, working with individuals like Jasmine Rechsteiner, a Miss Handicap winner who has spine malformations, and Erwin Aljukić, an actor with brittle bone disease. The project’s title? “Because Who Is Perfect? Get Closer.”

Twenty one-year-old photographer Edward Honaker documents his own depression in powerful self-portraits. The series of black and white images illustrates the photographer’s experience with depression and anxiety.

In an attempt to raise awareness of the topic, Honaker says about the project:

“Mental health disorders are such a taboo topic.

If you ever bring it up in conversation, people awkwardly get silent, or try to tell you why it’s not a real problem.

When I was in the worst parts of depression, the most helpful thing anyone could have done was to just listen to me – not judging, not trying to find a solution, just listen.

I’m hoping that these images will help open up conversation about mental health issues.

Everyone is or will be affected by them one way or another, and ignoring them doesn’t make things better.

It’s kind of hard to feel any kind of emotion when you’re depressed, and I think good art can definitely move people”

Edward’s face is blurred or covered in all of the haunting black and white photos, which are meant to portray the helplessness felt by someone who is battling a depressive disorder.

“All I knew is that I became bad at the things I used to be good at, and I didn’t know why” Edward recalled of the time before his diagnosis. “Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary” he noted.

The Honaker’s series of mental illness portraits are a powerful reminder that while each individual’s experience with depression is personal, the feelings can be universal.

Founded in 2010, Nowness is a video channel premiering the best in global arts and culture.

The channel’s programming strategy has established it as the go to source of inspiration and influence across art, design, fashion, beauty, music, food, and travel. They work with both established and emerging filmmakers which connect their audience to emotional and sensorial stories designed to provoke inspiration and debate.

The #DefineBeauty Series collects videos created for “unpicking the politics and prejudices of attraction”.

#1 – Define Beauty: Les Fleurs by Saam Farahmand

Director Saam Farahmand heats up the body hair debate.

“One of the things I appreciate most about female beauty is what’s commonly appreciated the least” says Saam Farahmand of his ode to body hair that launches NOWNESS’ new five-part series #DefineBeauty. “I wanted to find something about women that was almost unanimously disliked.” The transformation of the female form from hairless ideal to glorious natural state is set to the rousing score of Minnie Riperton’s “Les Fleurs”.

“There was something so affecting about Minnie Riperton’s ability to breathe her gender—she speaks to female sexuality in a way that seems to exclude male consideration” says the London-based filmmaker.

#2 – Define Beauty: My Scars by Matthew Donaldson

Each disrupted surface has a story to tell: a heavily scarred man and his lover share their intimate thoughts in Matthew Donaldson’s “My Scars”.

Matthew Donaldson illuminates the narrative function of scars in this stripped-back portrait of British photographer Sam Barker, accompanied by intimate reflections from his lover.

#3 – Define Beauty: Beyond the Skin by Jonas Åkerlund

“Hollywood is so good at only seeing what’s on the outside, and using that first impression instead of going deeper” says Jonas Åkerlund of the location of the final film in the #DefineBeauty series, in which he follows American model and actor Shaun Ross around the back streets and freeways of Los Angeles. “I think Shaun has spent all his life with those reactions. Look again and you see that this guy is really beautiful.”

His gothic style is apparent in today’s portrait of the famed albino model, who recently starred in Lana Del Rey’s 30 minute film, Tropico. “When Shaun showed up on Hollywood Boulevard, Darth Vader and Mickey Mouse were affronted” the filmmaker says of filming Ross. “Like, ‘What the fuck is this guy doing here?”.

PH : lginç meslekler

Giada Semeraro

Arte Povera is a modern art movement. The term was coined by Italian art critic Germano Celant and introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s, when artists were taking a radical stance. Artists began attacking the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture.

The Lane Bryant #IMNOANGEL initiative celebrates women of all shapes and sizes by redefining society’s traditional notion of sexy with a powerful core message: ALL women are sexy,” the brand says.

It’s a direct dig at Victoria’s Secret, and social media is loving it. Women have jumped on the trending hashtag, posting their own photos and declarations with #ImNoAngel.

Ashley Graham, one of the stars of the Lane Bryant campaign (she was also in that Swimsuits for All ad in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue), posted a fun photo to Instagram yesterday, writing: “On the F train, literally. Can’t hide these curves!!!”.

The American feminist artist Cindy Sherman (1954) “emerged onto the New York art scene in the early 1980s as part of a new generatio
n of artists concerned with the codes of representation in a media-saturated era” .
She posed in different stereotypical female roles, she’s got plenty of subjective emotions she can exploit through the media: In photograph after photograph, Sherman was ever present with different costumes. She wants to overturn the trend of the american society based on appearence and consumption,ready to celebrate the product and not its producer.

“Throughout her career, Sherman has appropriated numerous visual genres—including the film still, centerfold, fashion photograph, historical portrait, and soft-core sex image—while disrupting the operations that work to define and maintain their respective codes of representation.[…]

Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills (1977–80) have been canonized as a hallmark of postmodernist art, which frequently utilized mass-media codes and techniques of representation in order to comment on contemporary society.[…] Sherman’s stills have an artifice that is heightened by the often visible camera cord, slightly eccentric props, unusual camera angles, and by the fact that each image includes the artist, rather than a recognizable actress or model.”